Dyspraxia and Cycling

[Armegatron]

Hello,
My fiancee has succumbed to the cycling world, and Ive reserved a bike that she feels comfortable on (Apollo Blossom). She has Dyspraxia so has issues with stability and coordination. She'll only be riding cycle paths at < 5 miles so not huge distances, and has a fear of traffic so most of the time will be on bridleway / shared paths.

I want to make cycling as easy as it can be for her, so the wider tyres (26 x 1.9) should hopefully make her feel more stable. I was thinking of indicators to help with keeping hands for steering, and lowering the seat a touch, but I'm stuck with thinking of anything else that could help. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Rob3rt]

Those indicators are a crock!

There was a recent poster on here added to their lame rep, but its really cool how much effort you are going to help out your wife

Lowering the seat would make pedalling more effort/less comfortable etc, you should optomise the seat height, too low and she will be pedalling too much from her knees.

Sorry cant be more constructive.

 

[Armegatron]

Those indicators are a crock!

There was a recent poster on here added to their lame rep, but its really cool how much effort you are going to help out your wife

Sorry cant be more constructive.

Cheers, I had a look on a vid on my lunch break of them and the left and right seem too close to each other, and possibly too dim to be of much use. Still though, I might consider them as she would still need front and rear lights. I think she may cope with riding one handed with the arm extended, its the shoulder checks that may prove tricky as even I struggled to balance when I started out - so in the mean time I might buy her a mirror just for peace of mind.

 

[Rob3rt]

Search for user mrsfry of mrs fry or something and find her posts, she had concerns of issues balancing while signalling ignore and bought those indicators, if you ignore her official review of the indicators and read her later retration for what happened with hers. Also they are NOT waterproof.

A mirror is a good idea, I sometimes swerve towards the shoulder im looking over, im sure lots of people do it so if she has balence issues it might be worse. But at the end of the day on bike paths/bridleways she should be okay with minimal checking, its normally idiots walking in the bike lane in front of you that you need to be watching for in those situations!


Just dont go buying her spd pedals

 

[bauldbairn]

There was a recent poster on here added to their lame rep, but its really cool how much effort you are going to help out your wife

+1, regards the effort to help your wife.

I think the "poster" of the poor indicators was Mrs Fry.(Cyclax or something)

To be honest I think the correct indicators would be a good idea - maybe someone could suggest a different model to the one's everyone hates.

Good luck with finding a solution - sorry I've not been more help. I'll check around tonight when I get back in, to see if I can find different indicators(if you haven't already done so).

Well done to Mrs mike.pembo for taking up cycling - hope she enjoy's it.

 

[summerdays]

I disagree with those arguing against the seat lowering... yes it will be slightly harder to cycle but she isn't going huge distances and having the seat slightly lower than ideal may give her more confidence. I can barely tough the ground when I'm sitting on the saddle ... certainly not enough if I had balance issues. Its a compromise between being able to pedal more efficiently and being confident about not toppling over.

Start with the saddle low so that she can confidently touch the ground then raise it a little if she is happy to try it. Then re-assess the saddle height again later.

If she is on a cycle path its rare that she will need to signal anyway, but a mirror may help to be aware of what was going on behind her.

If you cycle beside her she may turn her head to talk to you ... and then after a bit you could position yourself a little further behind... (only slightly) and she might not even realise that she is doing it. And that way she could gradually build up her confidence.

I've cycled with my friend's son with dyspraxia - though fairly mild, and he is now able to turn his head around and indicate. With him it was just lots of practise.

 

[Arch]

To be honest I think the correct indicators would be a good idea - maybe someone could suggest a different model to the one's everyone hates.

All the ones I've seen suffer from the same problem - being too close together. Especially if the central rear light is on as well, a driver behind will probably not be able to make out which side is flashing. Add to that, drivers don't expect bikes to have indicators, they expect arm signals. So they may not even look for, or understand, or see, indicators.

I'd agree, practice is the key. Find some nice quiet areas of cyclepath or residential road (cul de sacs are good), and do it by stages, lifting the arm off further and further each time, until she can ride one handed happily (with each hand). I find I usually freewheel while indicating too, unless I really need to keep the speed up - that might help.

And a mirror will help - my Mum found hers a great help, having poor peripheral vision. It's not a good idea to rely on it entirely though, so she should also practice the lifesaver glance - also I find that glancing back a lot often has the effect of holding a driver back slightly, so it's useful to be able to do it.

The seat height thing will depend on her build and the geometry/BB height of the bike. See what she feels confident with.

Anyway, good luck to her, and may she soon be badgering us for advice on what bike you should buy her next...

 

[xpc316e]

I have taught a couple of people with Dyspraxia to ride safely and it is eminently do-able if you take it slowly. I have recently been working at a special school; one of the girls on the course was dyspraxic and was quite scared about many aspects of cycling. She had a lot of courage though and tried most things, but baulked at taking her hands off the bars to signal. When we gave everyone bean bags to throw into hoops and score points with, she suddenly 'forgot' that she had to take her hands off in order to launch the bean bag. End result - she could then remove her hands from the bars.

The same approach might not work with an adult, but it may be a good idea to engage a local Bikeability Instructor to help you in this task. They will have different ideas about how to conquer various problems, and they say you should never teach your loved ones to drive - I suspect that the same is true about cycling.

Good luck with the task - the sense of accomplishment for both trainer and trainee in these circumstances is immense.

 

[Armegatron]

Thanks for the replies. It was a really nice day today so we went out for a few miles and she's a natural

I stayed behind her to give her some independance with learning and just went on cycle paths the whole way, and I noticed that she was doing lifesaver checks without realising so Im really happy about that. And she looked great on the "girly" bike!

As for the bike, we collected it from Halfords on Saturday and when I got it home there were one or two things I wasnt too keen on, but managed to resolve before todays ride:

Firstly the front mudguard was loose so I tightened it up as it was rubbing on the tyre.
The front hub seemed notchy so I had a look at the bearings and there was hardly any grease in there, so its now greased up nicely.
Tyres were under inflated by about 10psi.
Brakes were badly adjusted and were binding.
The shifter for the hub wasnt adjusted correctly, and Ive never seen a hub before so that was a learning curve.
There was no lube on the seat post or the post for the handlebars, so Im possibly going to read up on how to maintain the bottom bracket and headset as Im worried they dont have enough lube either.
The chain smelt of WD40 and didnt seem to be oily.

Im going to take Thursday off to go on another ride with her into town this time, and sign her up to a local scheme where you can leave your bike in a manned shop in the bus station free of charge

 

[summerdays]

I'm glad you had a lovely day - hopefully her confidence will continue to grow. And equally glad you knew enough to sort out the problems that you were presented with on the bike so that it didn't give her any problems.

 

[Lizzi]

Hey there,

I am the clumsy Mrs in question

Just wanted to say how grateful I am for everyones help and understanding and also for Mike for being so brilliant, love him loads.

Really enjoyed today, it was much easier than I had anticipated. The bike was extremely comfortable - so this helped most. I even managed to talk towards the end of the ride, as I was riding in silence concerntrating so much, takes a lot to normally shut me up

No doubt I will be posting more with lots of questions!

 

[summerdays]

Glad you enjoyed it Lizzi, and he did sound that he was very nice. I imagine he felt very proud of your achievement at the weekend. Any questions, ask away - I know I've asked loads in my time.

I helped out at a stabilizer session at school recently, most of the kids were infant age but there was one 10 year old. He was the child I felt for and worked with the most - and even though I don't know him I felt really happy at the end of the session watching him cycling around the playground able to avoid the little children.

 

[Armegatron]

Lizzi - terrible username! No one uses there real name as a username on a forum...



mike.pembo

ps. Hopefully we will be doing some GeoCaching & Cycling on Sunday

 

[XmisterIS]

Glad you enjoyed the outing Lizzi!

For what it's worth, although I am not dyspraxic, I am dyslexic and I am also incredibly un-coordinated and clumsy. I have zero hand-eye coordination, can't kick a ball, useless at cricket, remedial at tennis and squash, have never been anything other than bottom of the badminton league!

Nevertheless, I am an accomplished cyclist and I ride a motorbike. I've found that while I haven't got the "trick" skills of many riders, I can nevertheless do stuff on a bike that most people can't; because I enjoy it and so I've persevered.

It takes me twice as long as Joe Average to learn to do something that requires hand-eye coordination, but I get there in the end.

Keep on riding and you will improve lots! Each time you go out, try to do some riding that is a little challenging for you and you will notice improvement. I say a "little" because the physical skills that some irritating sods whizz-kids can pick up in two seconds flat take people like you and I a lot longer and a lot more effort!

 

[Arch]

Lizzi - terrible username! No one uses there real name as a username on a forum...



mike.pembo

ps. Hopefully we will be doing some GeoCaching & Cycling on Sunday

Yebbut, is her name really Hilda?

Welcome Lizzi, and glad you had such a fun first ride. You'll be outdoing Mr Pembo here before long! Take pity on him when he whines for a cake stop...